Win the College Soccer Recruiting Game: The Guide for Parents and Players

The college soccer recruiting process is often mysterious, mercurial, and frustrating. Perhaps the ultimate U.S. soccer insider, Steve Gans, provides parents with a roadmap and gameplan for navigating the process from youth club soccer to recruitment to a college soccer program. In this book, Steve explains each step in the college recruiting process as well as the ways that players and parents can best prepare for them. Topics include:

• Engaging recruiting coaches
• Creating highlight videos
• Selecting Identification Camps
• Evaluating Showcase Tournaments
• Considering MLS Next (boys) or ECNL (girls) options
• Weighing MLS Next vs. high school
• Dealing with recruiting coach departures
• Understanding College Draft Boards
• The potential impact of playing out of position for your club
• Recruiting services your club should provide
• The pros and cons of having college coaches at your club
• Dealing with the unpredictability of and within the process

This book includes 7 interviews with top college coaches to help you understand firsthand what these coaches look for in a player and the recruiting approach of each of them.

The book begins, and is interspersed, with the college soccer recruiting journeys of Steve’s sons, Noah and Josh, and the unexpected recruiting developments faced by them. The lessons learned from those experiences are instrumental in Steve paying it forward by providing parents and players with both recruiting tips and traps for the unwary. As Steve will attest, each soccer recruiting story is personal, and by approaching the process armed with knowledge and a sense of what to expect, each player and their family will have the best chance possible for recruiting success for that player.

Steve Gans has unmatched vast experience in American soccer. As the only American who has been a player, pro soccer front office executive, advisor/consultant to players, clubs, management and owners, and an attorney representing players, coaches, clubs, management, executives, owners, and colleges - from youth club soccer, to college, to the pros to World Cup - he has unmatched unique experience and perspective. He was named one of Soccer America magazine's Top Personalities of 2017, and he is commonly asked to comment on issues within the sport, including by the New York Times, the Sports Business Journal, the Washington Post, ESPN, The Athletic, Soccer America, the Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated, the BBC, The Sunday Times, German DW News, and the London Evening Standard.

With respect to the college soccer recruiting experience in particular, Steve has counseled many youth clubs, leagues and related organizations, sat on the Board of Directors of a U.S. Development Academy/MLS Next club for 5 ½ years, investigated a college soccer program at the request of a major university (in a matter involving recruiting), represented college coaches in employment-related matters, and advised countless parents and players regarding the youth club playing and college soccer recruiting process. In short, there is very little in the sport of soccer he has not experienced or navigated.

Steve is a partner at the leading Boston law firm Prince Lobel Tye LLP. He lives in Newton, MA with his wife Lori and Super Mutt rescue dog, Mila.